알와잔 또는 레오 아프리카누스, 아프리카와 유럽의 문화적 정체성과 경계성

Abstract

This paper examines how the cultural identity and boundaries between Europe and Africa were artificially constructed in the early modern period, focusing on Descrittione dell’Africa (The Description of Africa) by the 16th-century Maghrebi scholar al-Hasan al-Wazzan, better known as Leo Africanus. To demonstrate this, the paper first analyzes the publication and translation process of the book in Europe, which was mainly spearheaded by figures such as Ramusio, Temporal, and John Pory. This analysis reveals that European translators projected a Christian-centric view and racial prejudice onto the text, thereby defining Africa’s identity as a primitive space that was separate from Europe and destined for colonization. Next, by analyzing the original source text of Descrittione dell’Africa, the paper reconstructs al-Wazzan’s own perspective rooted in the Dar al-Islam (the Abode of Islam). For him, the Mediterranean was not a dividing line between continents but an inland sea of the Islamic world, where the criterion for distinguishing identity was religion, not geography. The paper then traces the process through which al-Wazzan came to be named ‘Leo Africanus’ amidst the collision between the European bias towards Africa and the Islamic worldview that prioritized the religious world. This naming demonstrates how the European geographical and racial worldview ultimately overwhelmed the Islamic religious and trans-continental perspective, becoming a symbol that defined the ‘other’ as ‘Africa’. In conclusion, by comprehensively analyzing the internal and external contexts surrounding Descrittione dell’Africa, the study argues that the European and African boundaries accepted today are a construct resulting from the intellectual and cultural practices of early modern Europe.